Posts Tagged ‘public utility commission’

In a Public Utility Commission (PUC) hearing on Thursday, to address what happened to cause the rolling blackouts of Feb. 2, members of the commission accused the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) of ignoring dire energy forecasts, failing to communicate with other important decision makers, and understating the risk of rolling blackouts.

Texas PUC Commissioner Donna Nelson

As part of a routine review of rules governing its relationship with ERCOT, PUC Member Donna Nelson requested to add language that says the commission at its own discretion and without ERCOT board approval may terminate the employment of the chief executive officer.

Board members indicated that what happened on February 2nd and the hours leading up to the decision to institute rolling blackouts throughout the state pointed to part of a pattern of ERCOT’s failure to communicate with the public and the PUC, the oversight agency for ERCOT.

Click here to view the archived video of yesterday’s PUC open meeting.

State officials seem determined to hold somebody accountable. The state Senate will also hold hearings in to the blackouts beginning next week.

Reuters carried a good story with this headline Texas, home to Big Oil takes a shine to solar power that describes the solar potential that exists, along with industry involvement and how it could be expanded here if we could just develop some statewide policy that supports it.

Too bad the commissioners at the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) don’t see it the same way. After spending years (literally, years– since 2005) to come up with a portion of the state’s renewable portfolio standard to deal with solar and other forms of renewables besides wind, they finally got around to publishing a proposed rule (the 500Mw non-wind portfolio standard) for these technologies.

Commissioner Ken Anderson described it this way: “This is just a proposal.” In fact, all three Commissioners stressed that the simple act of publishing the proposed rule does not mean that the commission ever intends to implement the rule.

So it looks like the Legislature is once again going to have to take up this simple task. And give the commission direction. As they did 5 years ago. And again during last session.

Texas has lost hundreds of opportunities for solar companies to locate here– and over 10 billion in capitol investment– because we don’t have any statewide policy in place to support what could be the biggest boom industry since they started calling the Austin the Silicon Hills (as opposed to the silicon valley).

With the Legislature having its hands full with a huge budget shortfall, redistricting and their usual work on top of it, let’s hope they can find time to send a clear message to the PUC that this needs to be done (as they were instructed in 2005) and it needs to be done now before more opportunities slip away.

We need a dramatically increased solar program. More than anything, we need the jobs, we need the energy, we have the people and we have plenty of sunshine. We just need a little good policy.

With ICF International’s John Blaney stateing “We’re continuing to expect renewable capacity to grow rapidly in the near term, but it slows briefly after the incentives expire. Despite the recent market volatility – the huge buildup in 2009 and the slowdown in 2010 — we project that the U.S. will install just over 51 gigawatts of renewables between 2011 and 2016 and 86 gigawatts between 2017 and 2030″, is Texas really going to miss out on this energy boom ?

We are thrilled – but not surprised – that because of a growth spurt in the development of wind energy, Texas has met its renewable energy goal 15 years ahead of schedule. Each time Texas has set a renewable energy goal, the state has achieved it far in advance of the deadline set by the Texas Legislature. That’s because Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) policies are incredibly effective at stimulating new technologies and economic growth.

RPS policies are also remarkably successful at reducing air pollution and global warming gases. This program has resulted in 9 million fewer tons of carbon dioxide and reduces emissions of nitrous oxide, or NOx, by 15,000 tons per year and as such should be heralded as one of the state’s most effective environmental programs. The success of this initiative goes to show the positive outcomes that can be reached when environmentalists and business communities work together.

In 1999, the Texas Legislature created a Renewable Portfolio Standard that required all utilities to get at least 3 percent of their energy or a statewide total of 2,000 megawatts from renewables by 2020. In 2005, that goal was increased to 5,880 megawatts by 2015, with a target of 10,880 megawatts capacity created by 2025, which is the target that has been met. At the time of its implementation, this legislation was the most aggressive in the country. Similar policies have proven successful at creating demand for renewable energy throughout the United States, but nowhere have they been as successful as Texas. In Texas, these policies have resulted in the creation of as many as 83,000 jobs, according to Public Citizen studies.

Texas should adopt the same policies to encourage the growth of non-wind renewable energy such as solar, geothermal, biomass, agricultural methane and landfill gas. Texas has become a leader in wind as a result of carefully crafted policies like the RPS, but there is no reason we can’t do the same and become a leader in non-wind renewable energy as well. The Public Utility Commission and the Texas Legislature have the opportunity to develop other sources of renewable energy and thereby bring economic growth to Texas. This is happening elsewhere, but not in Texas, because we lack the specific incentives for non-wind renewables that other states have jumped to adopt.

The current success would not have been possible without the hard work of environmentalists, large wind producers like the Wind Coalition, the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association (TREIA), environmental groups, church groups and rural county officials who worked together on what has become one of the state’s largest job creation programs and boon, through increased property taxes, to educational services in rural communities. Our thanks go out to these parties, and we certainly hope that in 10 years, we can applaud the similar success of solar and geothermal energy due to a non-wind RPS.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

The Public Utility Commission has launched a new website called www.SmartMeterTexas.com that allows customers to track their energy usage in 15-minute increments to better understand their usage patterns and potentially decrease their electricity consumption and costs. After several years of behind the scenes work, this is the first step in smart grid, or advanced meter technology that’s being rolled out.

The website is only available to customers that have had digital smart meters installed, of course. Have your most recent electric bill on hand when you log in to establish proper identification. As of Tuesday, 1 million customers in the Oncor and Centerpoint territories can use the site — and eventually more than 6.3 million Texans will be able to manage their energy use through the site.

This is the first step towards an exciting energy future where you’ll be able to view your electricity use through a browser on your smart phone and turn off or on the electricity flow to various devices. In the future you will be able to work with energy management partners (such as Google) and your retail electric provider to help better manage your use and reduce your energy consumption. In this not-so-distant frame, you’ll be able to tell if Junior left the TV on and turn it off from afar (and send him a nagging text message of course). Or maybe you realize you’re getting off work early; you’ll be able to go ahead and set your thermostat so the house will be nice and cool by the time you get home. The technological possibilities of smart meters will eventually offer us radically more control of our energy use, which will decrease overall pollution from power plants, the need for new power plants to be built, and of course our energy costs. (more…)

In the world of energy, there’s one clear winner when it comes to cost, cleanliness and speed: energy efficiency.

Although regulated utilities in Texas, with few exceptions, met or surpassed all energy efficiency goals set by the Legislature in 2007, this is not the time for Texans to get complacent.

Rather, it’s time to increase our energy efficiency goals and give utilities more tools to achieve new, more aggressive targets. In this time of economic uncertainty and out-of-control utility bills, homes and businesses across Texas deserve more action.

Last year, the Public Utility Commission of Texas completed a study of the state’s energy efficiency potential. Conducted by the independent firm Itron, it concluded that there’s room for Texas to reduce its energy use by 18 percent. We could save even more during times of peak demand. The study also reported that if the Texas Legislature sets higher goals for energy savings, consumers could save $4 billion to $12 billion on utility bills over the next 10 years. (more…)